In a statement made by the Ministry of Commerce, it was reported that the Advertisement Board examined advertisements that deceive, mislead, exploit lack of experience and knowledge of consumers, and unfair commercial practices in its August meeting.
In the statement, it was stated that 128 of the 138 files discussed at this month’s meeting were found to be in violation of the legislation, and that a decision was made to impose an administrative fine of 16 million 257 thousand 632 lira in total, along with the suspension of advertising, on the advertisements and commercial practices in question.
In the statement, it was conveyed that the Advertising Board made opinions and evaluations regarding 1202 files in the 8-month period. It was emphasized that in this context, it was decided to impose administrative fines of 165 million 41 thousand 612 liras in addition to the suspension penalty for 1055 files that were determined to be deceptive advertisements or unfair commercial practices.
The statement, which stated that the Advertisement Board of the Ministry of Commerce has also taken an administrative sanction decision regarding search engine results that are misleading to consumers, included the following statements: “It has been evaluated that the price information in the result displayed as a result of a search made on an online search engine and the price information on the website directly accessed from that result are different from each other, therefore the search result in question is deceptive and misleading to consumers, and it has been decided to impose a suspension and administrative fine on advertisements and promotions offering misleading price offers belonging to a foreign-based company operating in the tourism sector.”
The statement also emphasized that timeshare advertisements that mislead consumers are not allowed, and the following was noted:
“As a result of the examination of the advertisements of a timeshare facility frequently preferred by consumers in health tourism within the scope of the advertisement legislation, it was determined that the facility had made misleading advertisements by including pool images and the word ‘thermal’ in its advertisements, despite the thermal spa areas of the facility being sealed and closed to use. Therefore, it was decided to stop the advertisements and impose an administrative fine on the company in question.”
In the statement, it was stated that one of the priorities of the Advertising Board is to inform consumers clearly and truthfully about the qualities or components of the goods or services they are considering purchasing, and the following statements were made:
“In accordance with this approach, it was determined that although the advertisements published on the website with a foreign domain name extension belonging to a company operating in the shoe sector included information that the product component contained pigskin, no information was included in the advertisements published on the website with a Turkish domain name extension for the same product. As a result of the evaluation made by the Board, it was decided to stop the advertisements that incompletely informed consumers and to impose an administrative fine on the advertiser.”
